In Oklahoma, Sickening Wave Of Memories

By Corey Takahashi | STAFF WRITER

September 12, 2001

It was a scene that sent law enforcement officials in Oklahoma City into shell shock yesterday.

Black smoke, rising from the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Then the traumatic site of the two 110-story buildings collapsing into a massive heap of broken glass, twisted metal and smashed concrete.

"We're all just in a daze and trying to get through the day," Capt. Jessica Cummins, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma City Police Department, said hours after two planes slammed into the buildings.

"We had a huge disaster, but this is significantly more," Cummins said.

On April 19, 1995, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed in a 9 a.m. terrorist attack that killed 168 and wounded more than 500.

With no definitive death counts in New York yesterday, the focus stayed on survivors. Eight Urban Search and Rescue Response System teams from across the country were sent to New York to aid local and state agencies. Four others were sent to the Pentagon, which was also damaged when a plane crashed into it.

"They'll start searching for the victims," Bri Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said of rescue workers in New York.

Finding survivors - or bodies - will be complicated, particularly on grounds that double as a crime scene.

In addition, arrangements for identifying the dead in New York were unclear yesterday.

"We're working this out right now," said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office.